8. VII ~ A Bad Time

The dashboard only read 150mph as I raced through the streets, deserted at this time of night. Turned out that around here, humans must’ve slept like logs seeing as no one had woken up yet from the rush of my car.

It was midnight as I finally made it back to our house. Or that’s where I had planned to go. But even as I missed the turn off for our street, I knew why. Even as an immortal, he had this undeniable addiction, he still managed to pull me too him. And it made me furious how he had this power over me. I dug my nails into the rubber steering wheel and gritted my teeth together, running past a red-light in my haste.

Okay this was getting silly. I lightly took my foot of the accelerator and fell down to a slow crawl of 50miles. Even if I was drawn to him like a ‘moth to a flame’ I didn’t need to be idiotic about it. Sooner or later I was going to be able to kick the crap out of him, sooner or later I was going to get him back. Rage fuelled me on and I slipped back into my average speed.

“Right, it was on the left turn.” I scanned ahead, already seeing the little opening coming flashing past me on purpose. It carried on that way, crawling past their driveway for a good fifteen minutes, not knowing what to do. I finally gave up and slowly drove down the small entrance.

The giant trees on either side looked over a hundred years old themselves as I cut the engine, parking in between a couple of them. I’d walk the rest of the way up- it was quicker to escape by running anyway.

I took a quick glace back out of the drive, for the last time as my escape option now. No- Rayché, Sami, Silphese and Axel were already in there. Slowly I walked next to the gravelled pathway, trading silently on the grass, trying to make as least noise as possible. I still had time to high-tail it back to the car if they didn’t realise I was there yet or not.

As the mansion made its way into view, I looked up at the clean white house. In so many ways it was the same as the one at Forks. The differences being that the house had a subtle hint of cream in that white paint, and that the garage was detached to the left of the house, and a lot bigger than the last one. I could see the glistening of some sort of pond behind that, and something that sounded like a rush of water- a river or a waterfall perhaps installed somewhere…

I listened keenly to the sounds inside the house. Laughter, mostly from Emmett it sounded like, came from downstairs. Talking from the room furthest to the left of the house, were all definitely female. And then right in front of me, must have been the main entrance or something, came Sami’s voice. It was wonderful to just listen to this; them all sounding happy. Perhaps nervous, even in some one case, definitely Axel, overly friendly. One last glance over and my silent heart against my ribs painfully. I knew what was coming, and if I was going to face it, it was going to be head on.

If it was too much, I could be the coward and run.

I straightened up and walked around the side of the house. I wasn’t going to make a grand entrance anywhere. Walking all the way around didn’t take long, even when I was trying to control the sound of my footsteps. When I’d managed to study it all long enough, I’d found that a long balcony had run around the back of the house.

The supports underneath it were made of cement, and the balconies fence was a metal frame of crossed vines. Thankfully it wasn’t all that tall. I stretched up one hand to try and touch the frame, but it seemed I was going to have to jump.

I pressed off from the floor, easily catching hold of the black iron railing in one hand. There was a pause in the conversation and I held my breath, hoping they hadn’t heard anything. I’d just wanted to quietly slip into the back, but it seemed that nothing was easy anymore! A sharp gust of wind, and a shiver ran down my spine, at the same time that the talking inside started up again. I exhaled a quiet sigh of relief.

I pulled myself up, jumping nimbly over the obstacles and opening the first huge glass door I came to. It slid open easily, and as I closed it behind me, I realised that it almost looked like I’d been breaking and entering. Which in a house of vampires, I found pretty impressive.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one that had realised what it was like. A second later and I found myself pinned against the wall, for the second time that day, my breath stuck in my throat and being held feet in the air. The arm not holding me swung up in time to protect its owners face as I kicked out defensively, before pinning my arm to my side and pressing itself against me to stop any more violent kicks. The strangle hold moved to cover my mouth, and I opened my eyes.

The eyes staring back at me, furiously topaz, burned into my mind. Washed over everything I’d been thinking of and all that was left was that solid memory of those frozen, so angry, topaz eyes, inches from my own face.

“Who are you, and why are you sneaking into our house?” His voice spat at me, violence in every word. I started to shake violently at his touch, his whole body pressed against mine, his hand covering my mouth so hard that I couldn’t have said anything anyway.

Before I could do much, the instincts of being a vampire kicked in; fuelling more on wild emotions than anything else. Anger kicked in- and sadly he hadn’t caught my leg in a sensible place. I just hoped his manly pride would help him threw this. On instinct I caught my leg up, in time for him to double over. Wow- even male vampires still had their weak spot.

A growl escaped my lips as I watched the beautiful creature in front of me stand up, an angry snarl on his lips already. He held himself tall, still taller then me now like when I’d been human. The glossy bronze hair was messy, but not from being wind-swept from before. It looked like it had tried to have ‘been ripped out by the roots’ messy. The clothes still crumpled like at the school. Everything echoed unkempt and bedraggled, and…lonely. The eyes, the ones all his family had been wearing, were worse than the others as they stared at me from across the room. There really was only one way to put it;

‘Dead’

He was up before I realised it and had again pinned me to the wall. Or rather, shoved me through the cement, which crumbled to the floor as he held me tightly and uncomfortably in his grip. If only I had my new-born strength now!

“What’s going on?” Alice appeared in the doorway, shock on her face as she watched Edward slam me against another wall.

“Who are you?” He hissed into my ear, at the same time grazing his teeth along my neck. It wasn’t an intimate gesture; it was a threatening, horrifying movement.

I felt the second drizzle past, counting every beat of it, readying myself for what was going to happen. I wouldn’t be able to react fast enough; even for a vampire. Then; it was like he’d been shocked by electricity. I felt him draw a breath against my throat, and then he released me.

I wasn’t sure why. Fright was clear in his eyes; like he was properly looking at me for the first time. Honest and clear shock. He shook his head twice, as if something was impossible, and he wasn’t accepting it, before stumbling four steps backwards and then running out of the room.

“Melanie, are you alright?” Alice ran over to me, searching me with her gaze. I ran my fingers along my neck. He’d been so close to biting me. He’d have killed me. A strangled sob wrenched itself from my voice box. “Melanie?”

I stayed silent, trying to both forget and remember everything that had just happened. I blinked once, and then walked past Alice in a dazed state. Perhaps I should just leave now. I managed to stumble down the stairs, still in a trance, in time to hear Carlisle and Esme talking.

“He just ran out Carlisle! Will he be alright?” Esme’s mothering voice drifted over to me as I sat down on the nearest sofa, not real looking at anyone in particular. In my mind I was replaying that scene over and over, each time hating it even more.

“I don’t know. Emmett; would you mind going and looking for him? I don’t want to let him leave at the moment.” I felt his gaze cross the room.

Another sob left my throat as I tucked my knees to my chin. It was then that I felt Jasper sit down next to me. His eyes were trying to attract my own, but I failed to respond.

Silphese sighed from standing across the room with Rayché. “If it’s a bad time, we can leave.”

“We’re so very sorry about that. He’s our eldest son in the family. I don’t think you met him. He’s been extremely…upset these past few years.” Esme tried to find the right words. She didn’t need to. I knew why he was like this. All he felt truly was sadness that he hadn’t ended it all sooner.

Anger poured through me and I had to bite down hard on my lip to stop from venting my frustration. All of a sudden, I felt warm. Not the normal coolness; but the warmest parts of the room. I could feel the Sofa somehow…heating up where I was sitting. The warmer objects, like the back of the TV which had obviously been on a few minutes ago, looked slightly…glowing.

“Melanie!” Two voices echoed to me. One was Alice, who had fought into the small room we were all perched into. The other was Silphese. I turned my head to look at his shocked expression.

Something was wrong.

The feeling of seeing the warmth around me vanished as fleetingly as it had come; the opposite of Silphese’s confused face, which stayed the same, watching me intently.

“We’ll leave now then. We don’t wish to intrude on anything upsetting.” He spoke sharp, as if the words weren’t connecting to what he was thinking. “Come on Axel, Sami.” Both of them appeared at the door. I didn’t even realise they weren’t in the same room as us until Axel lifted me up by one arm.

“Thank you for your company. Perhaps another time?” Sami nodded to Carlisle in response, and then followed us out into the dark.